Poltergeist Activity?

Leafing through my back pages, I find that my photos have been playing musical chairs. A post headed "My Back Yard" (or some such) is graced by a picture of Tossa de Mar. What on earth's going on?

I guess I could set things straight, but is it worth it? Does anybody, except for the doting author, ever look at year-old posts?

The Devil Limps Back

There's a passable movie version of the Devil Rides Out. Christopher Lee v Charles Gray. Lee as the good guy for once.

The Goat of Mendes puts in an appearance, sitting on a rock. What I want to know is why, if he's so fearful and awful and horrid, you can make him bugger off by merely shining a light at him and chucking a crucifix?

When I was a kid I wanted to spend my birthday money on a copy of the Devil Rides Out. There was a hell-horse on the cover and the barrier between its dimension and ours was about to tear apart under the pawing of its steely hooves. Scary. My mother put her head on one side and looked forlorn and said, "well, if that's what you really want..." so I bought The Three Musketeers instead. I don't suppose I regret it.

Actually Wheatley might have approved. Dumas was his hero.

The BBC ran a sort of expose of Wheatley last night. Guess what- he was a fascist. He thought the Attlee government was the thin end of a red wedge that would drive true-born Englishmen into the sea...

Clutching their jars of Brycreem to their manly chests.

By the time I arrived on the scene with my birthday money, Wheatley's star was fading. He'd been the ultimate in raffishness- the silk scarves, the smoking jackets, the whisper of a friendship with Aleister Crowley- but now the slabby cheeks were crazed with broken blood vessels and the hooded eyes of Ian Fleming (a newer breed of bounder) were staring out from a million back covers through a haze of Balkan Sobranie.